So I have been at site for just over a month! While at times it seems to be going at a slow rate, when I look back I think it is kind of going fast...kind of. I do have a lot of time on my hands, this past month I have finished doing community mapping with the 6 villages I will be working with. It took quite some time because meetings were supposedly canceled, and people NEVER show up on time. Patience will be one of my strongest virtues, I'm sure of it when I get back...right now not so much. Well, for this month I gave my counterpart a schedule that I would like to hopefully workout. It will be meeting with the villages every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and if they have to reschedule they can do it the next day. Well I hope it works, although this past Monday no one did show up so we just wandered around and found groups of people to complete the seasonal and daily activities activity I had. Since the meetings haven't been so structured I decided I need some type of
structure in my life or I may just go crazy. I started working out with the Nike Training App which is pretty awesome, I only missed 2 days since I started: one Sunday when I strained my ankle at church because BOTH my feet fell asleep...I got up too fast and didn't realize they were asleep until I practically face planted it, good thing I had Stella next to me to catch me; I also missed Monday because I was sick, I'll spare you the details on that. Another thing I have started is running which I do like when I actually get up and do it, its just the motivation at first which I lack and then I feel
pretty good after. I don't run every day, but I've run about 45 miles total. When I run I usually do at least 2 miles, sometimes when I feel like a slacker I run more just to tell myself to shut up and just do it ha. Believe it or not I've started reading as well everyday...when you have to be in before dark or meetings start 1 or 2 hours after the start time you just have too much time not to read. I've read 12 books so far! Okay maybe each book in the Bible doesn't count as a single book, but I'm counting it. I'm currently in 1 Kings reading about Solomon. I wonder if some of the nightmares I get are actually from some the crazy things I read and not from the Malaria medicine. The other books I have read are Pride and Prejudice, Erasing Hell, A Hole in Our Gospel and I'm currently reading East of Eden. I've met some pretty great people in Malawi so far and I love the children. Word of warning if you are to bring your nail polish out to paint kids nails, do it yourself they make an awful mess and I swear use half a bottle...even when then only paint their non nsima eating hand. The line will only be about 30 children long with both boys and girls. My church had a recent fundraiser to build a new church as it is just mud and a thatch roof. It was an interesting thing, let me tell you dancing, singing, very joyful givers, I'll be excited to help them build when they have enough money. The service is Chichewa so I never do know what is going on, my neighbor just shows me what scripture they are at so I can follow along. I hear they have a 6am English service in town...I do not think I'll be waking up for that. Oh! I've started a fire with a single match for more than a week...granted I have been using a lot of paper... those community maps come in handy when they are finished. So I miss you all and hope some of you decide to come venture out to this amazing land of Malawi. In the mean time, why don't you sponsor a child or 2 or 10 or one for each child you have. It's never too soon to teach a child about children around the world and what they can do to help. Here is the website where you can do this: www.cotni.org This is the organization that Chichere Farm, which I will be working with is a part of and raises food for the children here in Malawi who belong to this program.
Other Thoughts:
-Some children think of me as Chinese as there are Chinese shops here and they are the only other non black people they see...so I've been called Machina from children
-If I had a kwacha for every time a chicken pooped on my porch, I'd be rich...I may just not feel bad if I am forced to kill one....I chickened out last time ha
-American Agriculture...how I miss you. Especially after hand harvesting maize for 7 hours, the amount we harvested would have taken less then hour back home
-A visit to Lilongwe is full of excitement...I was so excited to see a city with good food and other volunteers. My preparation for my journey included: conditioner...only for special occasions, painted my toes my favorite toe nail polish color which is different then my actual favorite color of course and changed my outfit 6 times trying to figure out what was best.
